In the field of water conservation, preventing evaporation from bodies of water is becoming increasingly important. As populations increase, the pressure on natural resources, such as water, also increases. Industries such as mining and farming are also important users of this essential resource. Water lost through evaporation is lost as surely as if it was used. To replace this lost water, replacement water must be provided or purchased. With the pressures placed on water by increasing populations and industry, not only is water becoming increasingly expensive, it is also beginning to be apportioned and controlled. Thus, in many instances, any water lost through evaporation is simply gone and cannot be replaced. This can result in the production of many industries being limited by water availability. Increasing production is a matter of providing more water or increased efficiency using the water available.
Efficiency of water use is currently being increased through reclamation and various conservation techniques. In many cases, water is collected in surface water reservoirs. Evaporation of water from these bodies of water is a problem that has resulted in many and varied solutions. Many of these solutions include a covering over the water. Current coverings include floating covers, discrete floating elements such as balls (bird balls) and floating modules, and chemical mono-layers. Each of these techniques has its drawbacks and advantages. Floating covers are generally a single sheet of material pulled over the surface of the body of water. While effective in covering a high percentage of the surface, this technique is difficult to manipulate on large bodies of water. Chemical mono layers are relatively cheap, but less effective at reducing evaporation than a cover, and are difficult to separate from the water. Discrete floating elements can be used on large bodies of water, are easy to add and remove, but typically have a limit to the coverage possible. A commonly used floating element is a hollow sphere often referred to as “bird balls”. While somewhat effective, the ball shape leaves gaps between adjacent balls reducing there evaporation prevention effectiveness. Additionally, a great many balls are required to cover a body of water, and these balls can be expensive to produce. Other shapes of floating elements have been developed to increase the coverage, but none has been more effective than the ball shape.
It would be highly advantageous, therefore, to remedy the foregoing and other deficiencies inherent in the prior art.
An object of the present invention is to provide a discrete element cover which when used in numbers, has a higher percentage covering capacity.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a cover structure which is relatively inexpensive to produce.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a cover structure which is simple to use.